The evolution of malware and the threat landscape

The past 10 years represent a very interesting timeframe for reviewing vulnerability disclosures and ensuing changes that continue to affect risk management in IT organizations around the world.

Vulnerability disclosures across the industry in 2011 were down 11.8 percent from 2010. The overall vulnerability severity trend has been a positive one. Medium and High severity vulnerabilities have steadily decreased since their high points in 2006 and 2007.

Malware continues to evolve, and the fluctuations in detections of different forms of malware sometimes indicate the successes at given points in time of the software industry’s persistent antimalware efforts versus the efforts of malware developers.

In this podcast, Tim Rains, the Director of Product Management at Microsoft’s TWC group, talks about a special edition of Microsoft’s Security Intelligence Report – “The Evolution of Malware and the Threat Landscape”.

Listen to the podcast here.

Tim Rains is the Director of Product Management at Microsoft’s TWC group. Tim and his team of product managers support the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC), the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), and the Microsoft Security Engineering Center (MSEC) which includes the Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) and Security Science. Among other things, Tim’s team manages production of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report.

Tim has worked in several roles at Microsoft including the Senior Public Relations Manager of Security Response at Microsoft, Senior Product Manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, Program Manager of the Windows Network Diagnostics team, Technical Lead on the Security Incident Response team in the Product Support Services (PSS) Security team and Technical Lead on the PSS Windows Server Networking team.